


A Mysterious Girl Gets A Mysterious Text

by HeeCawRoo



Series: Nepetaquest 2016 [3]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Developing Friendships, F/M, lots of talk about the scourge sisters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-15
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2019-03-14 17:51:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13595250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeeCawRoo/pseuds/HeeCawRoo
Summary: -Nepetaquest 2016: Intermission 2-CA: hey so this might sound fuckin dumb or wwhatevverCA: but this dumb heist shit ter an vvris are doin is drivvin me fuckin nuts an i wwas hopin wwe could talk





	A Mysterious Girl Gets A Mysterious Text

**Author's Note:**

> takes place immediately after nepetaquest chapter 9

He’s already waiting for her when she arrives, and judging by the sheer number of empty coffee cups on the table in front of him he has been since before he sent the text. Briefly she wonders whether she was the person he meant to message.

She sits down.

He doesn’t wait another second before speaking, not bothering with greetings or explanations. “This is fuckin bullshit, Ar.” he says, taking a long sip from the steaming paper cup in his hand.

She isn’t used to the nickname. Thinking back on it, she’s not sure he addressed her by name at all before recent events.

‘Recent events’ being what has turned everything on its head; or so it may seem to the others. She, however, had always seen this building. Vriska was never going to let go. She was always going to keep pushing and pushing the boundaries, moving and inching forward towards the inevitable violent conclusion. Testing Terezi. Testing her allies. Aradia had not been surprised by the way things eventually broke.

What _had_ surprised her, though, was the text she had received thirty-four minutes ago.

 _‘hey, so this might sound fuckin dumb or wwhatevver’_ he’d sent. She hadn’t recognized the number, but the arbitrary wavering way he typed was unmistakably him. _‘but this dumb heist shit ter an vvris are doin is drivvin me fuckin nuts an i wwas hopin wwe could talk. im at that coffee shop, you knoww the one, wwith the gross golden angels or wwhatever takin a bath out front’_

Aradia pointedly ignores the ostentatious fountain. She waits for him to speak again. She’s not quite sure what to expect from him; they’ve never been what she’d call ‘friends’, despite being linked by two of her favorite people.

And even that link is fairly tenuous at the moment.

He puts his cup down on the table with more force than is necessary. She can hear the coffee sloshing dangerously inside it. “I don’t know what the hell Ter is thinkin, goin all machiavellian an plannin fuckin break ins or counter-break ins or whatever she’s callin it” he says. “She’s got Fef doin some kind a con on that bucktooth high schooler Vris’s got roped into all this, an not that subterfuge isn’t a great look on her but what exactly is the point a all this?”

Aradia files away Eridan’s apparent designs on Feferi’s morality and leans back in her chair. She wonders how long this conversation is going to wind up being. Maybe she should order herself a drink.

“The plan is to stop Vriska without letting her plans be revealed to the public,” she says. “We’re doing that by breaking into the bank before she can and confronting her once she gets there. That way we can prevent her attempt from getting any kind of publicity. All she’s after is attention.”

“Yeah, an this is fuckin givin it to her,” he snaps. “You can’t not realize staging a huge midnight face-off in a buildin you’ve all broken into like some kind a fuckin action film isn’t givin her exactly what she wants. She’s not after ‘the public’s’ attention. She’s after Ter.”

He isn’t wrong, she’s willing to concede. This isn’t the way she would have done it.

“I’m aware of that. So is she.” she says. She scans the menu on the wall over his shoulder as she talks. Nothing looks worth the price. “This is simply the way Terezi has always approached her relationship with Vriska. I’m not sure she realizes there’s another way.”

“That’s exactly the fuckin problem though, isn’t it? Their relationship” he says, looking her in the eye. There’s nothing of the relaxed disdain she’s used to from him. He’s completely serious about this.

She’s used to there being something of a distilling force between them. Even when he means what he’s saying, he’s aware the group isn’t likely to take _him_ seriously. He’s subdued, resigned to being ignored. Here, now, there’s nothing to stop him from speaking his mind and being heard.

She finds she’s surprised by how easily he cuts to the core of the issue.

Terezi and Vriska’s relationship should never have been allowed to advance to this stage. It was never any of her business -- until it was. She’d looked at it as sort of an inevitability.

Maybe it shouldn’t have been.

Eridan continues on, unaware of the revelation she’s currently having. “She’s treatin all this like an extension a their old rivalry, all the fuckin games and competitions they’d get into. But it’s not like that anymore. It’s gone on way too far, an she’s not gonna stop it with more a the same. It’s not a game anymore, but she’s still fuckin actin it like it is.”

“She doesn’t think of it as a game, though.” she says “She doesn’t realize she’s doing it. She believes it when she says she’s done with Vriska. She can’t see how her actions counteract her intentions.”

“You get it though, what I’m sayin. You see it.”

“Yes. I do.”

Eridan stares at her for a moment, then sighs. He leans far back in his seat, staring sullenly up at the ceiling. He buries his face in his hands.

“God,” he says, exasperated, and leaves it at that for a minute. “An I actually fuckin _like_ Ter, too. Why’s she gotta do this, Ar? Why’d she kick me from the group?”

She’s not sure whether he wants an answer to that, though she has one. She’s not sure he doesn’t already _know_ the answer.

Eridan was in the same position Terezi was in, once. But he never lost his head. When things between him and Vriska got to be too much, they stopped. It was as easy as that.

Terezi is not, generally speaking, as rational as she’d like to be.

The two of them sit in silence for a while longer. Eridan lets his arms fall to his side, the picture of misery. It’s as if all the resignation that had been missing from his expression has returned full force with the reminder. It condenses in the air. She can practically feel it.

It’s a strangely relatable feeling.

“It’s so fuckin stupid, too” he mumbles. “It’s not like I’ve ever really been _part_ of the group in the first place. None of them fuckin like me. I don’t get it, Ar. What the fuck have I ever done?”

“I don’t know.” she says, though she’s not sure that wasn’t rhetorical as well. “Sollux has never explained why he hates you. I think some of the others may simply be taking Feferi’s lead.”

He doesn’t move from his position, staring aimlessly at the tiles above them. Aradia eyes his abandoned coffee with faint interest.

“Kan’s the only one that really fuckin bothered with me anymore, and now she’s gone too.” he says. “Besides Kar, anyway, but he hardly fuckin counts. He’d be best friends with a fuckin rock. _Fuck._ Why the hell didn’t I see this comin?”

“Nobody else saw it either,” she says. “If Terezi had any idea Kanaya was involved with Vriska she wouldn’t have tried to include her.”

He sits up. “ _No_ one saw it?” he asks. “Not even you? Come on, Ar. You see fuckin everything.”

She blinks.

“Not everything.” she says, and refuses to elaborate.

He meets her eyes, and they don’t say anything. Suddenly emboldened, she leans forward and grabs his still steaming coffee cup. He yelps, and tries to grab it back out of her hands.

She takes a long sip, meeting his eyes over the rim, challenging him to do something about it. He laughs, and leans back in his seat.

“You know it isn’t gonna work,” he says, studying her. “Ter’s plan. You want to stop Vris, you gotta do it directly. You know what we gotta do.”

She nods. She’s perfectly aware of this. She has been since the night of the party. Sitting in that hospital, waiting, dreading whatever was to come. Knowing full well that the angry frustrated boy sitting beside her and talking about revenge had the right idea.

He licks his lips, looking uncharacteristically hesitant. “So,” he asks. “You in?”

She drains the last few drops of coffee out of the cup and sets it down on the table between them.

“Of course I am.”

**Author's Note:**

> this is marked complete because it was supposed to be only one chapter but it also wasnt supposed to end with eridan and aradia deciding to Murder Vriska so who knows
> 
> probably if i write more of them itll be a separate fic because otherwise id have to change the title


End file.
